Naples, southwest Florida. Choppy waters on the Gulf of Mexico. Paul Goldfinger photo. March 2016. Click to enlarge.
Naples is a fabulous city in southwest Florida. The downtown is elegant with beautiful shops and restaurants. Yet, despite attracting tourists, the beaches are open and uncrowded. That’s because they don’t want to attract throngs, so there is plenty of parking and no mega events to force the residents into their homes such as happens in Ocean Grove and continues into September and beyond.
This photograph is from March, peak season for southern Florida.
MATT MONRO from the movie The Sand Pebbles.
You’re comparing Gulf beaches to Ocean beaches. The West coast of Florida differs significantly from the East coast.
The East coast of Florida has many of the same issues as Ocean Grove, specifically crowded beaches, life guards, parking issues and crowd attracting events (Spring Break as an extreme example).
Comparing relatively calm Gulf waters on the West coast to the waves and rip currents of ocean waters on the East coast is not a valid comparison!